


Hurt

by AOMGsus (BigBangObsessed)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chanyeol's got a shitty boyfriend, Cheating, Friends to Lovers, M/M, kyungsoo's bitter as hell, sekai if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11826711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigBangObsessed/pseuds/AOMGsus
Summary: Chanyeol has a way of picking lovers that leave him more broken than they found him. Kyungsoo always notices.





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> Well this is wasn't planned at all! So surprise. Barely anything but the first two paragraphs came to me today as I made breakfast, but I stuck with it throughout the day because I felt the urge to post it. It’s probably really cliche but I hope you like it? I think this is my prettiest work yet.

 Chanyeol’s got a smile like a million dollars and eyes like diamonds and a way of laughing, looking at you, hugging that makes you feel like everything is right with the world. It’s something that Kyungsoo had realized right away when they had started training together and his contacts had been so uncomfortable he’d given everyone and their grandmother a scowl because he loathed them but had to wear them anyways. Chanyeol had never cared- perhaps he’d seen that look one too many times to care anymore. Maybe he never cared. Whatever the case, he had a way of making things as simple as going out to get the groceries feel special.

 Chanyeol’s also got a boyfriend that makes Kyungsoo want to buy another car, solely to hit him with. He doesn’t care to remember how his friend had said they met- an underground rap event he’d attended one night when they hadn’t had schedules, something along those lines. Little details like cheap drinks and making out in the park that he forced to the back of his mind and deeper down still. In Kyungsoo’s personal opinion, the guy’s a scumbag. Jongdae and Baekhyun had been quick to agree after meeting him a few times, and after another encounter even Yixing wasn’t attempting to tell them he just needed another chance to prove himself. But Chanyeol has too many hearts in his eyes to see the fact that his love is nothing but a strategy to get to someone else, someone he treasured even more.

 But how do you tell someone so quick to love and easy to get heartbroken that they’re being used as a pawn in a big game to get to one of his band members, to Jongin? Well, you don’t until it’s absolutely necessary. Chanyeol was a big boy, Junmyeon had told them. As much as it ate them all up to think they had this secret about something in a life that wasn’t their own, nothing was so terrible or outright yet that they had explicit evidence to prove their claim. Chanyeol always needed the hard facts to change his opinion on someone, a trait that was both so sweetly naive and so difficult to work with. None of them wanted to be the one to hurt Chanyeol, the rapper with a warm heart and a smile that put one on everyone around him. And so they said nothing.

 Even if Kyungsoo seethed inside every time Chanyeol held his hand and he seemed like the only one holding onto anything. Or when he laughed at his boyfriend’s joke, but his eyes were too focused on Jongin’s response to notice the one that should have mattered the most. Some people, he supposed, were predisposed to looking for the next best thing once they had something good already. But Kyungsoo had never understood those types. And even if he had, he knew with every ounce of his being that a gem like Park Chanyeol wasn’t something that could be bested.

 

\--

 But then it had gotten that bad. It had barely been their two month anniversary when Chanyeol’s boyfriend had slipped up. They’d gone out to a club -as a unit of all things, the guy always insisted on inviting the rest of them on dates- and had a few drinks. Figuring he’d spend time with his friends while they were there, Chanyeol had gotten lost in the crowd with the majority of them on his tail. Kyungsoo sat behind with Junmyeon, no urge to dance when they did enough of it during promotions in the first place. Not that they were all that great at freestyling. And he’d silently gotten a bitter taste on his tongue while watching Chanyeol’s boyfriend lay his card on the bar between himself and Jongin, insisting what he assumed was that he’d pick up the tab. He’d watched lying lips curled into a smile that made his stomach churn, fingers brushing over the dancer’s arm in a way that made Jongin radiate discomfort he could feel halfway across the building. Junmyeon had pulled Jongin away with the smile he always used for people he wanted to deck and kept him tucked close the rest of the night. But no matter how far from the situation their conversation travelled, he still felt fire in his veins.

 The next afternoon, nursing a hangover, Chanyeol had smiled around his slice of toast at the same basic ‘ _miss you babe’_ text he got every other day from his boyfriend. “He’s so sweet,” he’d said to everyone and nobody. Knees tucked up into his chest with his back against the couch, still in the pajama jumper that made him seem especially precious. Looking so pleased with the most mundane of things when he deserved galaxies. And then Kyungsoo had snapped.

 “For God’s sakes, Chanyeol, he’s using you!” The words come out before Kyungsoo can stop them, before anyone can stop them. And he finds himself standing, fuming and staring down at everyone in their various spots along the couches and the carpet. “He’s just playing you to get to Jongin and he had been this whole time.”

 “...What?” The chuckle that leaves his lips is anything but amused- confusion, hurt and concern lace his tone and make Kyungsoo want to make the whole world forget he said anything. Maybe the floor would swallow him up too, that’d be nice. “What do you mean, how… how could you even just say that?”

 “Chanyeol…” Minseok sighs, picking at the individual fibers in the carpet as he speaks. “We think he was only attracted to Jongin in the first place. Whenever you’re preoccupied, or you aren’t around, we always know just where to find him.” He meets Kyungsoo’s eyes with a small nod, and if he’s ever more grateful for Minseok’s age it’s the reliability that comes with what he says. “And Jongin agrees.” Nobody but Chanyeol looks to the dancer in question with doubt- even the rapper himself seems past the stage of denying it.

 “I mean… he’s always picking up my side of the tab. We were all on separate checks at the restaurant last week, right? Cuz some of us weren’t hungry. But he insisted on paying for my meal when you weren’t looking. And… he did squeeze my ass the other night. At the club. I didn’t know how to tell you, or anyone really…” His lips are set in a firm line, eyes too focused on the ground to see Sehun. Their youngest sits next to him with a newfound rigidity in his posture despite the softness of the loveseat, fuming. Kyungsoo’s never seen his slender hands so white-knuckled in his life. From his seat on the floor, posture far more relaxed, Minseok’s eyes burn with a very similar kind of rage. “I’m really sorry, I promise I told him off for it and I never meant to provoke him.”

 “I want to talk to him.” Sehun speaks up, tone as clipped as it’s ever been. Minseok comes up with a quick thinly-veiled excuse to chaperone the youngest’s trip, something about it ‘being too dark to go alone’. Junmyeon, always the pacifist and last to allow any of them to resort to violence, doesn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea. And though it’s apparent to everyone that Chanyeol’s drowning in sorrow from the inside out, he’s no fool. He knows that the kind of talking Sehun’s prepared to do is nothing to do with apologies and far more to do with making his boyfriend very sorry in a very different type of way.

 “I’ll call him,” he says anyways, tone so soft it seems even Baekhyun at his side nearly missed it. They sit in silence as he dials the number reflexively, wondering if he’ll actually be able to speak when he brings the phone to his lips. “Hey, babe?” Chanyeol’s voice sounds chipper as ever, some of the puppy love still in his eyes though it’s weighted with a bitter kind of sorrow. Kyungsoo feels like he’s watching something he isn’t meant to see. Looking around the room for a distraction, he spots Yixing already feigning an absurd amount of interest in opening and closing the back of the television remote. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out again tonight, get some food or something. There’s that Thai restaurant not too far from my place that we had been planning on going to.” If he feels the overwhelming amount of sympathy for him Chanyeol does a damn good job at not showing it. “Yeah. Yeah the guys are coming too. Jongin’s been talking about how cool you were.”

 Kyungsoo sees rather than hears the hiccup in Chanyeol’s breath as he hangs up the phone, cheeks already damp with tears. His eyes follow but don’t seem to process as he silently watches Minseok patting Sehun down for any sharp objects before they leave the dorm, off to meet with who’s soon to be their rapper’s ex-boyfriend. And then it’s Kyungsoo’s turn to watch and be numb as the others usher Chanyeol up onto the couch, murmuring their profuse apologies and touching any part of them they can to soothe him. Kyungsoo meets Jongdae’s eyes with his own. And as he sits on the furthest end of the couch from them, probably looking as dejected as he feels, Kyungsoo gets just a little nauseous at the way he looks like he understands. As if he could know what it’s like for Kyungsoo right now, hating himself just a little for not being able to be worthy of Chanyeol and hating the world more for always throwing the shittiest people into his life to take his endless love and leave him number still.

 They sit in that silence for a while, dabbing tears and patting knees until Chanyeol speaks up in a hoarse tone. “Junmyeon hyung,” he utters softly. The latter squeezes his shoulder gently as if to say _I’m right here, it’s alright_ , waiting for the rest of what he has to say. The lack of emotion in his eyes when Chanyeol looks up is one of the worst thing’s Kyungsoo’s ever seen in his life.

 “Do we have any alcohol that isn’t for cooking?”

 

\--

 

 The entire day had slipped by like that. Silence filled only by the TV nobody bothered to watch and the tentative coos as everyone took their turns fussing over Chanyeol. Jongin had looked guilty as hell when _Chanyeol_ , of all people, had to apologize for the scumbag he’d entrusted with his affection and been played by. And Kyungsoo had watched, not moving far and eating even less than the one that had been wronged. He felt played in his own right.

 By the time night had come and Minseok had tugged Sehun inside, both rigid and sporting a couple more bruises than they’d left with, Kyungsoo had been appointed night watch. Chanyeol had downed too much soju (an entire bottle) and too little food to do much harm to anyone, let alone himself, but it felt better to have somebody watching him. Not that he’d planned to get much sleep knowing Chanyeol was like this, looking like he’d never know happiness again. They’d sat in silence, Kyungsoo pretending to check his phone as he watched the older man stare at the ceiling like it had all the answers to his troubles. Slowly, quieter than Kyungsoo had ever known him to be, he’d sat up and left the better half of the couch open. “Will you sit with me?”

 As if that was even a question he needed to ask.

 He’d barely sat down before he was greeted with a lapful of Chanyeol, of weary limbs that felt so much heavier than they normally did. Weighted down by the world. Another of the briefest lapses and he was face to face, the smell of peach soju permeating everything he knew and leaving him feel a little drunk himself.

 “Chanyeol…” It was the most pitiful argument Kyungsoo had ever put up in his entire life. He accepts the kiss with his own encouragement, eyes already shut before either of them is leaning in. It’s all gentle sighs and bitter tears and trailing hands that bring them closer together. Getting pulled closer and closer still and letting it happen because it should have long ago. He wonders how far Chanyeol would pull him in if he could, if he’d tug with his desperate and twitching hands until Kyungsoo could reach into his chest, stuttering with feeble dry sobs, and fill the void that the wrong kind of people just kept making bigger and more daunting in his heart.

 “Every guy I’ve ever been with…” Chanyeol starts, a whisper against his lips, and Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrow. Because this is a _special_ moment and _why would he bring up exactly what they’d been trying to forget_ and _god give me the chance to enjoy this just once._

 “Let’s forget about them for now, okay?” He breathes back into the space between them, refusing to let his hands tremble against perfect cheekbones and blotchy tearstained skin that he just loved to death. “Just for a moment.”

 “No, this is important.” He jostles them from their comfortable spot “Please, just listen this once.” What can he do but relent? Chanyeol’s eyelids flutter shut, lashes trembling like butterfly wings against his cheeks as he breathes deep. They take flight, brushing now against bubblegum pink locks as he trains his gaze on Kyungsoo again and makes him feel so small. “Every guy I’ve ever been with has just been a cheap way for me to distract myself from you.” His pretty eyes, they’re welling again, his pouty lips trembling again and he wants to make the sadness and pain go away but he can’t even _move_ after hearing that. “It’s so stupid, it’s so so stupid because we’re friends y’know? Good friends, and I care about you so much. But I care about you in the wrong _way_ and I know I do because you don’t- think of me that way-” He laughs, but the sound is enveloped in a sob and he’s closing in on himself. “Why won’t anybody look at me the way you do and mean what I want it to mean?”

 Kyungsoo’s body moves before he can process it, pulling Chanyeol down to rest his head against his shoulder. He ignores his own tears, stroking through his locks with unsure fingers as he remembers how long it used to be when they first met, when he saw that brilliant smile that made him want to fly and fall hopelessly hard in love. “Chanyeol,” he whispers, feeling like he has all the power in the world in his hands. “Chanyeol,” he repeats, beckoning to the man trembling in his arms. “The way I look at you has always meant that. You just weren’t looking hard enough.”

 And then all reservation had dissolved and left them to time’s devices, broken sobs over all the tears that had already been shed and all the pain that could have been avoided. They let them fall until sleep crashes over them in waves and they aren’t sure what they’re drowning in anymore but are far too tired to fight it.

 

\--

 

 Kyungsoo jolts awake in the wee hours of the morning, woken by the delicate sun through the windows on his skin and the heavy reality of the secret he’d given up the night prior in a moment of vulnerability. The panic is short lived as he realizes the near-suffocating pressure on his breastbone, leaving him immobile, is still Chanyeol. Has always been Chanyeol, but now it’s _truly_ him. Palpable and snoring lightly into his chest. In the light his hair is already becoming greasy, breath still laced with liquor that’s going to make him hurt far more than the day before. Eyes horrendously swollen from crying but like pearls, glimmering and beautiful inside when they peek open to see what caused his human body pillow to move.

 He deserves galaxies. And Kyungsoo promises right then to give them to him, even if that mean getting horribly lost in one along the way.


End file.
